Russian President Vladimir Putin canceled the 2015 decree banning Russian airlines from flying to Egyptian resorts. The relevant document was published on Thursday on the official portal of legal information.
In its latest version, the decree, which was repealed by Putin's current decision, allowed only scheduled air travel to Cairo and business air travel to Egypt. The canceled decree also contained a recommendation to tour operators and travel agents for the duration of the ban on air transportation "to refrain from selling to citizens the tourist product, providing for air transportation (including commercial) <...> in the territory of the Arab Republic of Egypt, except for the city of Cairo".
Now, these restrictions are no longer in force.
Air traffic between Russia and Egypt was completely interrupted in November 2015 after the crash of a plane of the Russian company Kogalymavia flying from Sharm el-Sheikh to St. Petersburg in Sinai. There were 217 passengers and seven crew members on board, all of them died. The FSB qualified the incident as a terrorist attack.
In January 2018, Putin signed a decree resuming regular flights to Cairo, but charter flights to the Egyptian resort areas remained closed until now. Over the years, Egypt has improved the system of screening, control and inspection of passengers and baggage, as well as significantly modernized the infrastructure of airports.
On the resumption of air links between Russian cities and resorts on the Red Sea Putin and Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi agreed on April 23 of this year. In early May, Russian Ambassador to Cairo Georgy Borisenko said that the aviation authorities and security agencies should complete the whole range of necessary measures for the real restoration of air links.
GSV "Russia - Islamic World"
Photo: Creative Commons
Based on materials from TASS